Today I want to talk to you about our struggle. In

Ephesians 6:12 Paul writes, "For our struggle is not..." First of all,

there is a struggle, and it is ours. I wish there weren't, but there is.

We all have struggles. Some versions say, "For we do not wrestle

against..." And it's literally describing a wrestling contest. Paul

wants to tell us what we don't struggle with. There is a struggle, and

here is what it isn't. Don't fight the wrong war so that you are

distracted from the real war. And here is the problem, you may be

fighting a battle that you aren't supposed to be fighting. You may be in

a war that isn't yours to be warring. And so all of your attention and

energy is being expensed into a distraction, and you've missed the real

battle entirely. Then when it's time to fight the real battle, your

barns are empty, you're walking onto a battle field emotionally

exhausted. We say, "My struggle is with my boss, I'm fighting with my

boyfriend today, he's such a cheater, I'm wrestling with some

republicant, or demobrat, that guy who is tailgating me, that's my fight

today!" In Ephesians 6:12 it says that our struggle is with

darkness.